Just days after Hurricane Irene swept up the East Coast, causing massive flooding in Vermont and leading to almost 40 deaths, Fox Business Network personality Charles Payne just had to ask, is global warming really to blame?

His guest, Bill Nye “The Science Guy,” said there is evidence to suggest it is a result of global warming, but that climatologists will need more time to fully connect the dots. Nye went on to lay out in plain terms some of the facts of climate change, including rising temperatures in the Pacific ocean. The two debated a Newsweek story claiming radical weather is the “new normal,” with Payne asking Nye if that was “irresponsible, or is there any science behind it?”

“The world is getting warmer,” he added. “Everybody, the world is getting warmer.” Nye went on to give some context to former Vice President Al Gore’s remarks comparing global warming skepticism to 20th century racism before Payne said, “you’re confusing our viewers.”

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

Not defending Fox Business or anything, but to be fair (and balanced), Bill Nye went off on a wierd tangent with analogies involving a Daschund having sex with a Pit Bull, as well as a New Englander having sex with a Papua New Guinean.

At the end of the clip Charles Payne says: “We brought you on because we knew you could connect the dots, and guess what, you’ve connected them. Although the route you’ve taken is still confusing some of the viewers.”

[...] Ritholtz, expert in explaining science to children Bill Nye manages to “confuse” Fox viewers as he explains that climate change is real and caused by humans: Just days after Hurricane Irene [...]

Nye confused me. Nobody addressed the basic issue as to whether the changes we are observing and that we can all agree on are just part of a normal cycle. If they are not then to what extent can we attribute these changes to other factors, e.g., are they man made and what data (and there are plenty) can be brought to bear to support that hypothesis.

Nye’s attempt to reason by analogy was weak and confusing. I think Payne was right to make the comment he did. We’ve really got to do better than this if we’re going to help people understand that we need to do something about climate change now.

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BR: The overall commentary — that Fox’s relentless Oil Co shilling and denial of well established scientific principles — is dead on. Someone who states that “Evolution is just a theory” — may be technically correct, but are highly misleading.

“A further step has been taken toward forming an international body that could plan for and respond to the threat of an asteroid impacting Earth.

The late August meeting in Pasadena, Calif., involved NASA, the European Space Agency and national space agencies from Germany and France. These are members of the United Nation’s Action Team-14, co-organizer of the workshop along with the Secure World Foundation (SWF) and the Association of Space Explorers.

Drawing on meetings last year in Germany and Mexico to discuss the threat of near-Earth objects (NEOs), the Pasadena workshop focused on plans to mitigate the effects of an asteroid strike, as well as developing an international model for the response to these threats.

“How should we respond to the threat of NEOs?” asks SWF Executive Director Ray Williamson…………………..”

I am a meteorologist who wants ALL OF THE FACTS told on climate change. Claiming that this hurricane is ONLY driven by global warming is just bad science and incorrect. New England has been hit by hurricanes in the past. 1893, 1938, etc. Those storms were stronger. I am not against the science of global warming. I am against the blatant one-sideness of scientists like Bill Nye (and others on both sides) who choose to present one side of an argument without presenting, in this case, the cycles that are drivers of storms like this. The AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) is in a warm mode (since 1995) like it was in the 30s. Historically, more hurricanes make landfall when the AMO is in a warm mode. If you want to present the Global Warming arguments for an increase in hurricane intensity, fine. If the data fits, I have no problem with this. Just present the natural hurricane cycles that are also drivers which are also well documented (by William Grey at the National Hurricane Center and others) along with it.

“wants ALL OF THE FACTS told on climate change …. The AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) is in a warm mode since 1995″
ok .. and it matters because ? CAPITAL is wasted & misallocated !! not like we have LABOR wasting away .. pick up entire regions and move inland already .. stop filling the ocean with anything but sand, dirt and grass

Yeah, let’s all listen to Al Gore, who according to some estimates stands to make a trillion dollars if nonsensical schemes such as cap-and-trade are enacted (no bias there). After all he voted for expansion of the wasteful and heavily polluting ethanol industry as a senator, and now he says he made a mistake! That’s great, Al! Too bad it took you so long to realize that we increased air pollution, pollution of the Gulf of Mexico, and wasted food in the process.

What scottsabol wrote was well said. The arguments in support of man-made climate change have been heavily one-sided, including on this website. BR, please answer for me why Greenland has “Green” in it’s name given that it is covered in ice? Please explain why the UN’s climate change panel distorted the graph of historical climate change patterns to eliminate the Little Ice Age. Climate cycles have occured througout history even when there was no human activity.

There are plenty of scientists who do not believe that climate change is caused by human activity. How about presenting their views for once? Otherwise you are just showing your own bias.

Anyone who says “Evolution is just a theory…” as a disparaging comment obviously doesn’t have a clue as to the way those of us schooled in the scientific method use the word “theory.” When people say things like that, they imply that the word “theory” is a synonym for “idea” or “hypothesis.” It’s not, as anyone who has any scientific background knows. What I don’t understand is why so many Fox fans admire and believe Glenn Beck on this issue, a man who never even ATTENDED college, much less has a scientific background. Moreover, they’ll listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity deny climate change–neither of whom is a college graduate much less a scientist–while at the same time ignoring near unanimous conclusions of members of The National Academy of Sciences who have spent much of their adult lives studying the issue. That’s just plain dumb.

There are over 1,000 dissenting scientists from around the world who have challenged man-made global warming claims by the UN’s IPCC. This is up from 700 in a 2009 US Senate report, and almost 20 times the number of UN scientists (52) that authored the IPCC report in 2007.

Number2son, I base my talking points on over 20 years of experience covering the energy markets. What do you base yours on? Watching the mainstream media? Apparently it’s easier to accuse someone of getting their information from the oil and gas lobby. It’s the typical tactic used by environmentalists who don’t want to hear the other side of an argument.

You’re right about the Southern areas of Greenland being green and fertile, and that is why the Vikings settled there, but you didn’t answer my question. The Vikings disappeared after 500 years because they couldn’t adapt to an increasingly harsh environment, while the Inuit thrived in the Little Ice Age. An island that is 80% covered by an ice cap is called Greenland because global temperatures go through cycles, with or without human activity. Back in the 70s scientists believe global cooling was a threat to the world. That obviously turned out to be wrong.

The US Congress can’t even balance a budget. Do you really think Congress can come up with a way to control the earth’s temperature?

“Ion-induced nucleation will manifest itself as a steady production of new particles that is difficult to isolate in atmospheric observations because of other sources of variability but is nevertheless taking place and could be quite large when averaged globally over the troposphere.”

Kirkby is quoted in the accompanying CERN press release:

“We’ve found that cosmic rays significantly enhance the formation of aerosol particles in the mid troposphere and above. These aerosols can eventually grow into the seeds for clouds. However, we’ve found that the vapours previously thought to account for all aerosol formation in the lower atmosphere can only account for a small fraction of the observations – even with the enhancement of cosmic rays.” […]

“[I]t is clear that the treatment of aerosol formation in climate models will need to be substantially revised, since all models assume that nucleation is caused by these vapours [sulphuric acid and ammonia] and water alone.

The models don’t even include the cosmic ray effect that CERN just proved are a significant factor. Are those the same type of expertly crafted mathematical models that wall street used to trade derivitives back in 2007? LOL.

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BR: Who knew that big yellow hot thing that hangs in the sky each day would play a major role in our climate?

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About Barry Ritholtz

Ritholtz has been observing capital markets with a critical eye for 20 years. With a background in math & sciences and a law school degree, he is not your typical Wall St. persona. He left Law for Finance, working as a trader, researcher and strategist before graduating to asset managementRead More...

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